


Spreading

by OnyxReed



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Character of Color, Chaptered, Class Differences, Class Issues, Conflict of Interests, Cultural Differences, F/F, Friendship/Love, Multi, Non-binary Amethyst, Non-binary Peridot, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Politics, Queer Youth, Realistic, Skype, Teamwork, debate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3992716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxReed/pseuds/OnyxReed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...The term speed reading is often contracted as 'spreading'. At the majority of national circuit policy debate tournaments, spreading is the norm."</p><p>Peridot takes a legacy of high-school debate championships with them to their new university. However, they also take their notoriety and cynicism, leading almost immediately to unforeseen consequences in the form of an inexperienced Lapis Lazuli. Based on the collegiate policy debate community in the United States.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Shakedown

**Author's Note:**

> No Lapidot in the prologue just yet (Lapis is only mentioned.), but it's necessary to set up the rest of the story!
> 
> Originally posted here: http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/119140421556/spreading-prologue

They were the oddest element of Rosalynn, Georgia.

The suburban town was permanently marked with its namesake university; the city had been built around the small institution quite literally. Like a magnet of energy, Rosalynn College demanded that everything and everyone of the town bent around it, closing it from the surrounding rural environment. However, this did not prevent elements of rural Georgia from infiltrating the campus (and, thus, the respective town). Smiling people wore their wealth on their wrists and in the pockets of their shirts. Men were crisp, women were prim, and nobody knew exactly what “they were” at first glance. They relished in the confusion with a spot of condescension.

They were, quite truly, the oddest element of Rosalynn, Georgia.

 

The first-year student had tried their best to convince their mother that the orientation week was “just plain unnecessary,” echoing the words of a boisterous older student that they knew through the debate team. However, Mother was having none of it, so she sent her new pupil packing one week before classes began to brave the first class flight from New York to Georgia (without layovers, of course) on their own.

As they stepped out of the taxi cab, the only one that they could find at the airport with some form of contact, with all three bags of luggage, the first thing that they felt was fairly simple and not unexpected: Georgia was significantly hotter than upstate New York. They frowned at this realization, hiking their shoulders upwards to ensure that all bags were secure.

Compared to the rest of their class, they packed rather lightly. Clothing, toiletries, school essentials, and laptop. That was all that they really needed. However, most everyone else had two beaming parents carrying at least three bags each, not to mention their own load. They wondered what anybody would need with all those things. They had even considered leaving their own laptop behind, given the campus laptops were free of charge.

(Well, included in tuition.)

They waited in a horrendous queue that, for the majority of the time, stretched outside the doors of the Welcome Center and into the harsh, beating rays of sun. As all eight-hundred students apparently also could not convince their parents of the futility of orientation week, they seemed to huddle forward, pressing against each other and exacerbating the issue of the sun for each other.

Glancing around, they could not find the long, white locks of hair that they had come to associate with their new roommate. It seems like her parents listened when they said that orientation was a joke.

They quickly realized that their trademark light-green beanie would probably become more of a winter thing in this new climate. Their blonde, short-cut hair began to stick to their neck from underneath the hat, sweat acting as an adhesive for practically everything.

They reminded themself of the perquisites of their new college, glancing over at the coveted communications department where debate practice would be held weekly.

“Alright. Name?”

They had waited long enough, and finally hearing this question directed at them was a godsend. “Peridot Kotawski,” they answered with haste, running a hand through their hair carefully so not as to upset the balance of their luggage.

“Student ID?”

“015-312”

The clerk took his merry time as he seemingly parsed through every member of the First Year Class before finally pulling up Peridot’s information. “Ah, there you are! Is it true that you have requested to room with Jasper… erm, I don’t know if I can pronounce…”

Peridot rolled their eyes, regarding fondly in their mind the nature with which Jasper would have responded to such ignorance. “Majekodunmi. Jasper Majekodunmi. Yes,” the first-year responded impatiently.

“Thank you,” the clerk replied, passing a swipe-card through a beam of red light as if it were a barcode before handing it to Peridot. “This is your room key. It is also your swipe key for the dining hall. Please don’t lose it.”

“Right.”

“You are in the Schmitt Hall, and you are room 108. I don’t believe that your roommate has arrived yet.” The clerk preceded to hand them a black folder full of paper with their name engraved in gold. Black and gold: the colors of the Rosalynn College, home of the Corporals!

“Omnes enim Humanitas:” the ironic motto of the sheltered, liberal arts college, shone upon the folder.

“Thank you,” replied Peridot tersely before turning away to find their hall.

Peridot had already spent quite some time during their flight looking over the Rosalynn College’s official map, so they spotted Schmitt Hall rather quickly. Like every other building on campus, it was beautiful in a rustic way, the red brick and white accents on the windows giving the entire place an old-fashioned feel. The heat radiated from the stone as Peridot approached the hall, but they were greeted by a cool gust of air as they entered the door. However, their overall demeanor did not change, as students and parents alike rushed through the halls, desperate to navigate the building to find their students’ rooms and roommates.

Scoffing, Peridot rushed past the other first years, rather keen on distancing themself as far away from the privileged stock as possible.

Peridot had found their room and settled in rather quickly, unpacking their things and folding them away on their side of the room with efficiency before plugging in their own laptop to revive it from its dead battery. Their beanie came off as they allowed their hair to air out and their skin to return to its original shade from a stricken red that clashed with their loose, green tank-top. The air conditioner blasted at their command throughout the room, and they let out a long sigh.

They logged into the student WiFi as soon as they were able to find the password among the myriad papers in the folder, including yet another map of Rosalynn, the dates and times of all orientation activities that Peridot may or may not attend, and advertisements for clubs and activities ranging from boating to debate.

As they glanced at the little 4x4 square that had been allotted to the debate team, the Rosalynn Forum chat once again popped up on their Skype.

 

 

 

> Pearl: None of the first years will show up early enough because YOU told them that orientation is useless!
> 
> Amethyst: ummm YEAH bc it is!!!! they can stay at home and cut cards imo
> 
> Lars: do they even know the resolution?
> 
> Amethyst: idk but we always need new ptx links, dont need the resolution for that shit
> 
> Peridot: I showed up.
> 
> Amethyst is typing...

 

Peridot wasn’t particularly sure why they didn’t just stay incognito; as much as they loved to debate, it would take them awhile to get used to living in a new place in a drastically-different climate. They weren’t nearly ready, emotionally nor mentally, for the whirlwind that was sure to be the competition of college policy debate.

Nor were they ready for Amethyst, whom they already gathered was quite rambunctious.

 

 

 

> Amethyst: o… garnet needs to talk @ u
> 
> Peridot: Sure.
> 
> Amethyst: idk what about tho
> 
> Amethyst, whom Peridot knew to be a fairly-successful junior on the policy debate team, pulled the first year into a private chat. They suddenly became awash in a sea of anxiety.
> 
> Amethyst: idk when garnets gonna come over but probably soon. ur room 108?
> 
> Peridot: Yes.
> 
> Amethyst: garnet has some plan for u.  
>  she didnt tell me much besides that.  
>  didnt she go to the tco in april to watch u?
> 
> Peridot: The tco?
> 
> Amethyst: shit sry, toc, tournament of champions
> 
> Peridot: Several people spectated me. I would not be surprised if she were one of them.
> 
> Amethyst: rly tall stocky black girl, huge hair
> 
> Peridot: Yes, she was there.
> 
> Amethyst: then shes probably gonna ask u about how u debate, what u wanna do for the squad this year, w/e  
>  shes a super senior so shes only taking 3 classes this semester and 2 next semester  
>  shes putting it all in debate, she rly wants our team to kick ass this year so shes taking the reins
> 
> Peridot: I will try not to disappoint her.

 

As soon as Peridot hit “Enter,” a message at the bottom of their screen showed that Garnet had logged on.

 

 

 

> Amethyst: well hot dam, hey g!

Peridot’s and Amethyst’s refocus onto the main chat room seemed simultaneous; as soon as the first year turned their attention to the Debate Room, Amethyst had sent the message.

 

> Garnet: Peridot is here?
> 
> Peridot: Yes, I just arrived about two hours ago or so ago.
> 
> Garnet: Are you in your room?
> 
> Peridot: Yes: room 108.
> 
> Garnet: I will be there shortly.

 

The first year took a step away from their computer as Amethyst’s message in their private chat began to pop up rapidly. They glanced over the messages with little scrutiny, seeing positive affirmations that only made their anticipation of Garnet’s arrival more pressing and worrying. They minimized Skype, moving to slump their body over the neatly-made bed and disturbing the sheets that they had spent a good amount of time pressing to perfection. Garnet would likely be about three minutes, given the distance from Schmitt and Communications.

Right on the dot, they heard a knock on their door. Peridot moved quickly to swing the door open, finding the large silhouette of their new team captain waiting outside.

“Peridot Kotawski?” she greeted with a slight lull in her voice, sunglasses perched against her hair in a way that just barely pushed the stubborn curls back against her scalp.

Peridot moved out of the way to let her into their room. “Yes. You must be Garnet.”

“I saw you at the TOC this year,” she mentioned, cutting right to the chase. She moved into the room and took a seat as Peridot motioned towards the chair near their desk. “What school did you go to?”

“Huxtable Prep,” Peridot said. “I was the K on Huxtable AK.”

“Huxtable…” Garnet nodded lightly. “They do well. How many other Huxtable teams went to the TOC?”

“None this year.”

“Were you the captain?”

“No. My partner was.”

Garnet nodded once again, straightening herself just a bit more. Even when she was sitting down, she seemed far taller than the standing Peridot. Much like how the town of Rosalynn curved in upon its college, Peridot could feel themself being warped in around Garnet, automatically respecting her as a leader.

“I watched your fifth round versus Elliot Academy FP. You won decisively.”

Peridot remembered the round. They were surprised, by the final speech, that their opponents had even made it as far as to qualify for the Tournament of Champions; the Elliot duo was as scattered as a common pair of first year novices.

“Right,” Peridot agreed, nodding their head in finality.

“Your strategy was executed flawlessly. If I may ask, what sort of speaker points did you receive?”

Peridot parsed through their memory, just barely remembering that their speaker points for that entire tournament, not just that round, were fairly awful. They had been confused during the entire drive back, looking over the ballots with constant deductions of the individualized points. Their partner had received great points, but they had not at all.

“Not good.”

“Well,” Garnet said with not a hint of surprise laced in her voice. “Your strategy was good, you executed it well, and you won. On top of that, your partner received near perfect points. Why were your speaker points low, Peridot?”

The heat-induced sweat seemed to return as they were crushed between the four walls of their dorm room and Garnet’s question. “I don’t know,” they answered honestly, skin once again going to red out of embarrassment.

Peridot’s own voice from the round rang through their head, spitting accusations and names and all sorts of strife into the air, as Garnet answered her own question.

“You were an asshole.”

The declaration hit Peridot like a truck; they swallowed hard as they tried to keep their composure. Garnet’s glower made it none too easy, as, without the sunglasses on, two eyes with oddly-purple irises narrowed at the first year.

“I… I am sorry,” Peridot apologized, stuffing their hands into their pockets and averting their vision to the wall. As they retreated from her gaze, they felt as if the air above them crashed onto their shoulders and pushed downwards. A guilt that they had never felt after that round or any other round when they were equally as aggressive manifested in their gut on command as the consequences became clear.

They were on the team captain’s bad side, and classes hadn’t even started yet.

“Look at me.”

Peridot’s neck snapped back to Garnet, whose glare had softened just a touch.

“You are a great debater. Huxtable trained you well. You need to tone down your ego.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Peridot conceded with a slight shake in the podium of their voice.

“I do not trust you to do this on your own. Therefore, I and a few other upperclassmen have decided to assign you a partner for this year. This is not a usual policy of Rosalynn Debate, but we think that this is in the best interest of you, your partner, and the team as a whole.”

Garnet’s words flew around in Peridot’s head rapidly, and they barely had enough time to comprehend them all, let alone formulate some sort of coherence in their reaction, before the super senior continued on:

“You will be partnered with Lapis Lazuli, another first year. She is completely new to policy debate. I expect you to train her.”

When Garnet left the room, her presence remained, manifested in the form of this news. Peridot let out a long sigh as their winning streak seemed to grind to quite a large halt, simply standing in the middle of the room for an extended period of time.

Their ego had always been advantageous for them. They would always run the shadiest, most rule-bending of arguments. The volume of their speech would back their enemies into a corner during cross-examination. The sweeter nature of their partner took off the edge. However, the judges at the Tournament of Champions were having none of it.

Clearly, neither was Garnet.

After a minute or so, they heard Jasper’s loud steps far before she entered their room.

“Hey, Peridot! I told you that your square parents would make you come for orientation, too. The clerk guy told me you were here. How’s my _brand new partner_ doing?” Jasper, with a form nearly as large as Garnet’s but purely so in the physical way, approached Peridot with the clear intent to hug them, muscular arms still coated in the sweat of the Georgian sun.

Peridot adjusted their collar, not nearly ready enough to break it to Jasper.


	2. Resolved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus begins the Lapidot! It's probably worth noting that, in the context of debate, a "partner" isn't necessarily a romantic partner. It's just the person with whom you debate! Teams come in twos.
> 
> Originally posted here: http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/119476982822/spreading-chapter-one

It turns out, as Peridot quickly and eagerly learned, that their parents’ absence allowed them to skip as many of the orientation activities as they wanted. After all, Mother and Father weren’t there to enforce anything! Therefore, they were left in a toss-up that, prior to Garnet’s warning-style declaration, would have been no contest at all: 

To attend orientation or to relax in the debate lounge?

As they rose, as bright and early as any other first year college student at 9:30 in the morning, they still hadn’t formulated an answer to the question. They made their way down the hallway to the communal shower, their eyes snapping open by force as the ice cold water poured upon the top of their head in a way that they had never experienced in their upper middle-class upstate New York home. Any remaining sluggishness shivered away in the cold stream.

They tried spinning the lever to the right, and they were greeted with a blast of magma that was supposed to be “warm,” according to the labels.

With a slight reverberation of pain on the back of their head from where they backed up too quickly and hit themself on the shower’s back wall to avoid the stream of fire, they braved the colder option of the two showers, making it as quick as possible.

The speed of their shower and their necessary preoccupation with their physical discomfort prevented them from thinking about their decision as much as they really needed to. As their friendship usually dictated, then, Peridot decided to go along with whatever Jasper Majekodunmi seemed to be doing.

Once they re-entered their room, the roommate in question was still sound asleep.

Peridot rolled their eyes and let out an exasperated sigh; however, they had no intention of risking the huge potential for morning irritability by waking Jasper up. They took their hairdryer back to the bathroom to dry off.

Upon their return – about ten minutes later, given how thick their hair was – Jasper was sitting up in her bed, stretching her arms behind her back.

“Mornin’, Peri,” she yawned, rubbing her eyes before moving to crack her back.

Peridot grimaced at the sound. “Good morning.”

A smirk. “Ready to blow off orientation?”

And, just like that, Peridot’s plans for the day were set. Knowing Jasper’s speed, they moved quickly to dress, pack their laptop, and slip their phone into their back pocket.

* * *

_“Omnes enim Humanitas! Shout it from the Johnson Hall and shout it from DeVras! We’re the mighty Cor-po-rals; we’ve never ever lost! Rossalyn Humanitas!”_

A few clouds in the sky concealed the sun, but the harsh Georgian heat still radiated from everything, putting yet another frown on Peridot’s face. They had quickly abandoned the beanie, opting instead for a headband that pulled stubborn bangs out of their face and back against their scalp. They pulled out the shortest shorts that they owned, which still covered a little less than half of their thighs in cloth. Despite their best efforts, every part of their body, from their skin to their face, reacted rather negatively to the heat.

Not to mention the loud swarm of first years crowding around the pep rally in the quad. Peridot grimaced.

Jasper, on the other hand, seemed completely at home in the sun, her dark skin holding up far better than that of her red companion. She had pulled her hair back into a self-contained ponytail resting behind their back; despite the volume of her hair being larger than Peridot’s by anyone’s measure, she left room to breathe.

And breathe she did.

“Are you sure that you wanna hang out in the debate room all day?” Jasper asked, letting out a satisfied sigh.

“Certain,” Peridot assured, using their hand to block out what little bit of the sun peaked from the clouds. “If you want to frolic with the orientation crew, you go ahead.”

With only a few steps separating them from the Department of Communications, Jasper wandered away from Peridot and into the large field acting as a centerpiece of the quad. As Peridot, to their glee, was met with a cool blast of air from the department building, they glanced over their shoulder to see Jasper running up to the pep rally, effectively trapping herself in the swarm that was orientation.

“Have fun, I guess,” they muttered incredulously.

Peridot pulled their phone out of their pocket as it began to vibrate senselessly. That could only be one thing:

> Amethyst: heyyy porl tell ur frosh 2 stop skippin on that orientation haha ;)))
> 
> Pearl: You know as well as I do whose fault that is, Amethyst!  
>  And STOP calling me “Porl”!
> 
> Buck: i don’t get what the big deal is, just let them come up.
> 
> Peridot: I assume you have spotted me.

“Yep!”

Peridot blinked, glancing behind their shoulder to see a shorter debater. They looked somewhat like Jasper, except their height was the opposite extreme. Otherwise, they had a similar skin tone, if a few shades lighter, and nearly-identical hair, if a tad thinner.

“I’m Amethyst!” they greeted, extending a hand with a grin.

Peridot had to extend their hand downwards at quite an angle to respectably shake hands with the other debater. “Peridot,” they replied. “It is a pleasure to meet you in person.”

“Sure is!”

“I’ve heard fantastic things about you,” Peridot complimented, following Amethyst as the latter raced through the posterior hallway to a common room.

“Eh,” they replied, pushing a button on the elevator. “People say things.”

Peridot blinked, nodding as they both entered the elevator. “I know,” they muttered with an undetected touch of spite.

“I take it you’re going to hang with us instead of going to that shitty orientation.”

“That was my plan.”

Amethyst smirked. “Good plan. Day One is all pre-orientation icebreakers and some pep rally. Utter bullshit.”

As the elevator doors opened once more, Peridot was greeted with a room that met none of their expectations. Rather than the organization that they would expect to be associated with such a successful debate team, the room was almost dilapidated, trophies and plaques littering the shelves along with old books ranging from politics to philosophy. The center of the room held a few tables and a long couch, upon which debaters and laptops alike slumped over each other. Fans whirred away from every corner of the room, relieving some of the musty air of the room caused by both a presence of heat and college students in closer quarters.

Peridot nodded in greetings as they acknowledged the presence of the most illustrious things in that room: the debaters.

Their eyes drew to Pearl, one of the most technically-advanced traditional debaters on the college circuit.  _Everybody_  knew about Pearl; she was practically a living legend among debaters. Peridot felt inches smaller in her presence, almost as small as they had felt in the presence of the seemingly-absent super senior. Pearl, however, automatically furrowed her eyebrows as she pointed an accusatory finger towards Amethyst. “I  _told_  you to send them back to orientation!”

“Stop being such a fucking square, Porl!”

“ _Stop calling me Porl!_ ”

Amethyst stomped over, growling accusatives and expletives at Pearl in the corner. Peridot quickly realized that, without both Jasper and Amethyst, they were left on their own in a room full of debate legends.

It was more than a tad intimidating.

“Peridot?”

They reacted to their name immediately, eyes scanning the room before they found the source: A younger debater, probably another rising first year, waving her hand. They felt obliged to walk over to her, the air about her working like a silent call of beckoning.

“That is me,” they responded somewhat cautiously, the fan blowing past them and pushing a bit of hair into their face. Peridot hardly thought to push it back into place.

The woman smiled, tucking a strand of her blue hair behind her ears as if reacting to Peridot’s hair malfunction for them. “Garnet told me to be keeping an eye out for you. I suppose, by now, you’ve heard the partner assignments, yes? My name is Lapis Lazuli.”

Peridot finally thought to push their hair away behind their headband once more if only to give their hands something to do. They maintained their aloof nature, nodding a single time to acknowledge Lapis. “Yes, we are partners this year,” they declared, the truth of the matter still stinging their tongue. “You have no debate experience then, right?”

“None. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

They furrowed their eyebrows. “Well,” they began, unsure of how to approach this impass, “quite frankly, at first, it will be a problem. Debate is fast-paced and competitive, so you probably won’t perform too well in our first tournaments. However, if you remain dedicated, I am sure that the problem will be alleviated.”

Lapis blinked, uncrossing her legs on the couch and adjusting her netbook on her lap. “Blunt. You don’t have any truth filter, do you?”

“No,” Peridot retorted, taking a seat on the couch next to Lapis with a touch of caution. “There’s no truth in debate, so I relish it out-of-round whenever I can.”

Lapis blinked. “No truth in debate?”

Peridot simpered with a hint of condescension on their countenance. “Of course not. Debate is a game. Truth comes before strategy, so we all focus on the latter.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Will that be a problem?” Peridot asked, quirking a brow upwards and holding a flicker of hope close in their gut.

“Not at all.”

Peridot let out a short sigh, turning back around in the couch. “Well, good,” they managed. “Strategy before truth. Function before form. Lastly, speed before sympathy. Those are your three priorities in this activity.”

“Is that so?” Lapis blinked, voice becoming laden with the burden of an active thought.

Peridot nodded once, turning their attention to the center of the room. A silence passed its way between the two as they both listened to the ambient sounds of the squad room, debaters chatting about what they had done over the summer, “war stories” of previous rounds, and their hopes of the resolution committee picking an actually-interesting topic for once.

Peridot looked back towards Lapis, trying to find something to break the silence.

“Is that a netbook?” they asked, quirking a brow and putting on an odd face.

Lapis nodded, putting her hands on the side of the monitor as if in protection. “Yes,” she answered plainly. “I’ll be using the school computers once they come out.”

“The ThinkPads?” Peridot scoffed. “Those things are horrible.”

“I’m sure that I won’t be able to tell the difference,” Lapis assured Peridot with a small shrug, moving her hands back to her keyboard. “It’ll be better than this.”

Peridot looked back to the center of the room silently, cursing internally. Garnet could have at least put them with the novice who had a decent computer! Alas, they were stuck with Lapis Lazuli, a seemingly mild-mannered first year with a shitty computer and not a drop of debate experience. Their luck was astoundingly horrible, and they hadn’t even been on campus for twenty-four hours.

Their luck took another turn when Garnet entered the squad room.

The tall woman glanced over approvingly at Peridot before moving to the center of the room. Everybody’s eyes, from the arguing Pearl and Amethyst to the flirting duo of Lars and Sadie, were fixated upon the co-captain.

Garnet held a slip of paper in her hand, from which she read: “Resolved: The United States federal government—“

“Holy shit! G, you already have the resolution?” interjected Amethyst.

Lapis glanced over at Peridot in question. Instinctively, Peridot held up a hand, signaling that they would explain it later. Lapis understood, returning her gaze to Garnet.

“As I was saying,” Garnet continued, “Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with one or more of the following countries:”

Given Peridot’s urgency, Lapis could only assume that this sentence that Garnet was saying, the “resolution” as Amethyst put it, was quite important. She typed the resolution frantically, her fingers moving adroitly on the chipped-off keys of her keyboard.

“Russia, Cuba, Syria, and Iran.”

“Another economics resolution?” Lars groaned, whereas Sadie grinned eagerly. He glanced over at his partner, rolling his eyes. “We are not running that stupid corporatism aff for another year.”

Pearl’s eyes were bright with anticipation, and she offered Amethyst a cheeky grin. They responded with a smile of their own, nodding their head as they knew exactly what the senior had in mind.

Everyone seemed to have some sort of reaction, most of which were rather excited. Peridot glanced at Lapis with thoughts running through their head. Lapis looked back with utter confusion.

“Alright, listen up!” Garnet clapped her hands, creating enough volume to call the debaters’ attention back to the center. “We managed to get just enough funds from Center to make it to the Atley College tournament in exactly three weeks. We have a sign-up sheet on the Facebook group. Sign up by tomorrow, and you will be paid for in full.”

Peridot looked over towards Lapis, who seemed absolutely intent in her resolve. “We’re going,” she whispered to the more experienced of the two first-years.

“What?” Peridot snapped quietly, leaning back. “You don’t even know what a resolution is!”

“We’re going.” Lapis’s voice held a commanding presence that Peridot had neither previously heard nor anticipated to hear. “Let’s go as Junior Varsity. We’re both first years, so we can do that, right?”

“I’m not sure if they will let me go down,” Peridot muttered.

Before either of them knew it, Garnet stood before them with an equally-commanding presence as Peridot had just heard from Lapis’s voice.

“You will be attending, I hope,” she asked.

“Yes. Is Junior Varsity alright?” Lapis questioned hopefully.

Garnet nodded once before striding off.

“Teach me about that statement,” Lapis insisted, turning her netbook to Peridot with the resolution typed up in the Notepad. Her blue eyes were captivating in their openness, as if Peridot could jump in and swim in an ocean of curiosity and potential knowledge.

Peridot thanked their lucky stars, finally, for a couple of lucky breaks. Not only did their novice seem entirely intent on learning and absorbing, but they would teach her on an easy resolution! Nothing to define, nothing to explain, just a year of economic sanctions. For a brief moment, their lip curled upward as their change in luck coaxed a spark of opportunity into their center.

“Meet me in the other room,” they instructed with a previously-absent spark underneath her voice, standing up and strapping their laptop case once again to their body with marked hurriedness that made Lapis start. The novice followed her instructor like duckling to mother.

“I’ll tell you all about it.”


	3. Authentic Engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where the political/social element of this story comes into play. CW: Use of the Q slur and some discussion of social justice.
> 
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/119721610616/spreading-chapter-2

“Resolved:”

Peridot stood in front of a large blackboard, a worn-down piece of chalk resting in between their fingertips as Lapis Lazuli sat poised to type her notes onto the Notepad file. Her chin just barely eclipses the tiny, blue finish of her netbook, framing an eager face.

Glancing just once at Lapis, Peridot turned once. “The United States… federal government… should substantially increase..,” they repeated aloud as they wrote the resolution upon the board, their crisp handwriting enlarged so the one sentence stretched across the entirety of the board. They wrote with precision that made Lapis’s note-taking predictably easier.

“…its economic… engagement… with one or more… of the following… countries: …Got all of this?”

“Yes; I copied it when Garnet said it back in the squad room,” the novice assured. Lapis leaned into the plastic chair attached to her desk, sandal-clad feet propped up on the next desk’s book basket.

“Right,” Peridot recalled as they wrote down the list of countries, now doing so silently.

“Russia, Cuba, Syria, and Iraq.”

“Oh! It’s Iran, not Iraq,” Lapis corrected with an unassuming grin on her face.

Peridot corrected their mistake deftly. “Russia, Cuba, Syria, and Iran. This is the resolution that we will be debating for the entire year. Essentially, should we or should we not abide by this? Since this is switch-side debate, we’ll have to be able to defend and defeat this sentence on the affirmative and negative side, respectively.”

The novice already poised her question. “Is that what you meant,” Lapis began, “when you said that there’s no truth in debate? We don’t have a single advocacy?”

While the question came as something of a surprise to the more-experienced of the two first years, in retrospect, they realized that they should have seen it coming. Peridot shrugged, drawing a T diagram with either side labeled “AFF” or “NEG.” They glanced over their shoulder to see that the curious Lapis Lazuli had paused her typing, focusing all of her energy on giving Peridot the captivating, almost shifting gaze that they had become hung up upon initially.

Peridot stammered for a moment before collecting the bits and pieces of their thoughts into an answer. “You could think of it like that,” they dismissed, their response thrown towards Lapis with a lazy, underhand toss that still managed to fall flat on its face before reaching its destination.

Lapis blinked with a hint of knowing underneath her countenance before continuing with her note-taking. “Go on.”

Seeing this as a sign of their success, Peridot did just that. “The affirmative side, or ‘aff’ as we call it, must come up with a specific plan to meet this resolution. For example, we could do something like, oh, ‘The United States Federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with..,’ give me a country.”

“Russia.”

“’…with Russia by lifting all sanctions placed as a result of the cession of Crimea.’ That is an example of what we call a plan text.”

Lapis frowned, leaning closer to her netbook as if to get a better view of Peridot’s large notes upon the blackboard, something that she clearly did not need to do. “But the government  _shouldn’t_  do that.”

“That’s not the point,” Peridot corrected. “ _At least for your first tournament,_  you really ought to just affirm the resolution as an affirmative.”

“For my first tournament?” Lapis Lazuli perked up, her grin returning once more with the same fluid spark lighting her eyes. “What do you mean by that? Can we flip the rules later on?”

The more experienced of the two shook her head, turning back to face the blackboard and continuing to write an outline of notes on the “AFF” side of the chart. “Forget I mentioned it,” Peridot denied. “Moving on.”

Lapis let out a long sigh, slumping back into her chair as she continued to listen to Peridot’s lecture, failing to forget the statement as its presence lingered within her head, peppering all of their lesson with its tempting potential.

Thinking to themself as they continued on with, after three years in high school of training novices, was a rather routine beginning-of-the-year lecture for them, Peridot couldn’t help but recognize that Lapis seemed more disconnected as it went along, her mind wandering off along its own stream of consciousness. However, they continued to tap along their keyboard with the same swiftness and efficiency, so there had to be some amount of notes to which she could refer; Peridot gave her complacency no heed.

“Your plan,” Peridot explained, “must be topical – that is to say that it must address the resolution. It must solve for some mentioned harms, and these harms must be significant. If you were to lift the sanctions imposed on Russia, for instance, a harm that this plan could solve would be Russo-American relations.”

“Well, that seems obvious enough,” Lapis commented with a sardonic hint in her voice.

“Clearly,” Peridot agreed. “Then, you could say that if Russo-American relations in the status quo decline any further – if your plan does not win – then a war between Russia and America might begin which, clearly, would take many lives.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Yes, it is.”

“There really is no truth in debate, is there?”

Peridot nodded sharply. “It’s strategic; that’s what matters.”

Lapis showed a slight twitch of her head in agreement as she depersonalized this hypothetical plan in an effort to mimic the apparently-successful debater.

“Now to the negative side.”

With very little effort, Lapis had been able to guess a few of the ways that someone could hypothetically disprove a plan as farfetched as the one Peridot had mentioned: Maybe war won’t happen over something so menial? Sanctions are a drop in the bucket! Won’t this harm relations with Ukraine? However, Peridot seemed to slash through such arguments rather quickly with a sweeping statement:

“Those are all on-case,” they explained. “They’re good, but they can’t win the debate on their own. You need off-case arguments.”

“Which is?”

“Anything that doesn’t directly attack something in the case is off-case. For example, we can run ‘topicality’ and say that the plan does not meet the resolution.”

Lapis furrowed her eyebrows. “But it does,” she retorted, her tone as biting as Peridot had ever heard it.

“If you find some crackpot definition,” Peridot explained, “then it does not.”

The novice shrugged, tapping a brief definition of “topicality” in her file and thinking of the irony of the name to herself. If debate was there for education, than this didn’t seem all that educational.

Peridot went on to describe myriad different “off-case” arguments that were even more stretched than the original plan or its seemingly-ridiculous topicality argument. If Ukraine gets mad, then Poland will get mad (for some reason), which will make all of Europe mad, and… global nuclear war? Lapis struggled to connect the dots in her mind, the absurdity of it all clashing against her sense of self in a discordant chord that rippled through her head. Once connected, it painted a surreal, uncodifiable picture in her head, one that could only be deemed a non-sequitur. It seemed so natural to Peridot to forego all sense in favor of detached logic. To Lapis, it was an impossibility.

Peridot finished their lecture with a blackboard twice erased and filled with different diagrams of ridiculous scenarios. Lapis’s Notepad file became obsolete for the complexity of her outline, and she was forced to retreat to the counterfeit copy of Microsoft Word that never seemed to completely work.

“Before we move onto some rudimentary strategy, do you have any questions?” Peridot balanced a now-smaller chip of chalk in between the tips of their fingers.

“Yes,” Lapis declared. “Do you really think that any of this is portable?” She gestured towards the blackboard. “I signed on to debate to speak about my opinions, not about this rubbish!”

Peridot blinked, tugging the strap of their tank top back up to their shoulders. “Well,” they began, clearly running at Lapis’s accusatory question with their eyes tied in a blindfold.

“This isn’t tangible! This isn’t real! Russia will not attack the United States because we aren’t trading with them, and I don’t think that Ukraine plays as much of a role in European politics as this ridiculous ‘disadvantage’ makes it out to play!” Lapis stood, a single hand on the top of her netbook’s monitor and a knee against the chair of her desk.

“You learn about politics,” Peridot defended meagerly, gesturing towards the resolution. “A generation of students who learn about these macropolitical issues is one that is prepared to speak on behalf of a nation.”

“I’m eighteen, Peridot, and so are you,” Lapis said with a sigh. “I don’t want to speak for the United States. I want to speak for myself.”

“I… I can’t stop you, but this teaches you to speak for yourself, as well.”

“How?” Lapis’s voice rose a few decibels. “I’m not America! I’m not Russia! I don’t  _care_  about any of this!”

“You don’t have to care.”

“Do you care?”

Peridot blinked. “I don’t have to, either.”

Lapis narrowed her eyes into slits as her hand came down, the monitor of her netbook collapsing upon the keyboard with a small clatter. She put the small computer into her bag, eyeing the door. “So you don’t care, do you?”

Peridot let out a sigh. “I care about advocacy.”

She slung the bag over her shoulder. “Is this what you want to be advocating?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You don’t want to, but you will do it anyway,” Lapis accurately predicted, striding up to the board and, with a swipe of her hand, smearing the white chalk across. The white powder left a fine layer over her palm, one that remained as she held her hand out, palm facing up, to take the chalk from Peridot. Curiously, they handed the chalk over, moving to the nearest desk – that in front of where Lapis previously sat – to watch.

“Economic engagement,” Lapis echoed, running her already-whitened finger over the words on the board and smearing them, “are diplomatic code words, as much as any other. You’ve been debating for four years, right? You should know this well enough.”

Peridot nodded, having a vague idea of Lapis’s direction. However, with many gaps in their mind to be filled, they continued listening without a sound.

“As a Filipina and as a woman, I will not affirm ‘economic engagement’ nor any of its consequences. Not on my life. I don’t care if this is some stretched-out game of logic and hypothetical plans that never leave the room. I won’t do it for a ‘win.’ I would rather lose every debate round and disappoint this entire team than affirm imperialism.”

“So you’re on the left?” Peridot asked, seeking to echo Lapis is a more concise manner.

Lapis let out a sigh, glancing over her shoulder to Peridot. Her face, adorned with a drop of condescension, made it crystal clear that the other debater had completely missed the point. Deeming that no words were needed, Lapis turned back around.

Left with a void where their expected understanding once stood in their mind, Peridot quirked a brow upwards as Lapis Lazuli ran her finger through more of the words, causing all of their intricate notes and T diagrams of various sorts to clash with each other in a greying haze of white-on-black. Despite their curiosity, they refrained from asking what she was doing exactly; now didn’t seem like the proper time.

When Lapis finished, she turned back around to face Peridot’s slightly-changed visage, if now with only an added pinch of curiosity. She held the chalk to the board, ready to write new notes upon the greyed mess of a board. “Tell me what you were to save for after this tournament.”

Almost as soon as the last word left Lapis’s mouth and reached her partner’s ears, Amethyst came barreling through the door, completely ignoring the apparent mess that had been made of the blackboard to address Peridot.

“Pearl and I are having a practice debate against Garnet and Rose if you wanna come watch!” they exclaimed. Amethyst glanced over at Lapis, at that point recalling that Peridot had been paired with a novice against their volition. “Ooh,” they corrected. “Are you two busy dealing with the basics?”

Peridot looked over Amethyst’s shoulder, glancing at Lapis for woman’s approval, something that they would never have anticipated needing. “Which sides?”

“We’re on the negative, and Rosenet is on the aff,” Amethyst answered.

“What is the affirmative?”

“Garnet is affirming ‘authentic engagement’ with the queer feminine body.”

Well, that changed everything. Lapis’s eyes lit up with both excitement and question, the opposite of her previous apathy and a different manifestation of her short-term passion that had been released upon the board.

That change was all of the “yes” that Peridot needed to see. “We’ll be right in. What are you running on the negative?”

“Oh, you know Pearl,” Amethyst said, rolling their eyes. “Probably just topicality.”

Once Amethyst left, the question exploded, an elephant in her mouth that was dying to be released. “Authentic engagement with the queer feminine body? That doesn’t sound economic to me.”

“It’s not,” Peridot affirmed with an amused grin. “They will defend that they have the right to be untopical.”

Lapis put the chalk down, wiping her hands clean of the white powder on her legs, smearing the substance onto her thighs and failing to remove it entirely from her hands. “Well, let’s see what happens, then! Can you explain what is going on during the round?”

“Add me on Skype so I can explain as the debate is going on. It’s Pdoxxed.”

“One ‘x’ or two?”

“Two.”

With anticipation, both sought to quickly return to the main squad room. Lapis strode behind her partner with the same pace as the latter, struggling to adjust to their crisp gait and unnecessarily-heightened rate of movement. For one who always took things in stride, Lapis found herself dwarfed by Peridot’s presence. However, to her, it was entirely clear that she could, at any time, pull the rug out from underneath her partner’s feet.

They found a spot at the end of the table adjacent to where Garnet was setting up a laptop stand amidst the rest of the debaters, all poised to hastily write notes on nearly-identical long sheets of paper. A few glances were thrown towards Lapis Lazuli, a seemingly out-of-place novice given the intensity of the debate that was clearly about to occur. Nevertheless, they both opened Skype with haste, exchanging contact – the first of many – as Peridot tapped out a lengthy explanation of what was about to occur.

> Peridot: Garnet is the first affirmative. She is going to give the first speech. I hope that you do not try to understand every word that she says, because, chances are, she is going to speak very rapidly.
> 
> Lapis: why would she do that?
> 
> Peridot: Remember: The first four speeches are nine minutes long, and the last four are six. We read quickly in order to get as much evidence into the round as possible within the prescribed time limits. We call this “spreading.”
> 
> Lapis: spreading?
> 
> Peridot: It’s a portmanteau of “speed” and “reading.”
> 
> Lapis: ohh, well how do you understand it?
> 
> Peridot: Practice.

Garnet tossed her flash drive to Pearl, who caught it with precision. “The speech is called, ’24 August vs. Pearlmethyst.’”

“Right.”

After setting her laptop up on the stand, Garnet held out a single hand to catch her flash drive by the lanyard, letting the device rest over her neck.

> Peridot: The first speech is called the ‘1AC’ or first affirmative constructive. You can try to take notes on Notepad or what have you, but it’s most important that you understand the structure of the debate and the basics of argumentation and speaking.
> 
> Lapis: ok!
> 
> Peridot: Try not to get overwhelmed.
> 
> Lapis: if I were the type, I would’ve been overwhelmed by your lecture! :P

“Hey, Garnet, how did you get an argument ready so quickly?” a dark-skinned Indian woman sitting in the back of the room asked with a hint of admiration.

“I didn’t,” she answered, gesturing towards Rose, who was beaming towards pride.

“I’ve been writing it since the hint was dropped a week ago,” Rose resolved before continuing to type away.

“Oh, come on, Rose!” Amethyst teased. “Now we’re going to have to fall back on some generic ass arguments. Well, not like Porl would want to run anything different.”

Pearl rolled her eyes, retraining herself from retorting in favor of preparation.

> Lapis: Pearl and Amethyst seem mismatched...
> 
> Peridot: I’ve watched a few of their rounds on streams. Somehow, it all works out.
> 
> Lapis: opposites attract?
> 
> Peridot: They have a certain dynamic that comes out when they debate. It’s really hard to explain until you see it in action.

Garnet glanced over towards Rose as she gathered her hair into a bun that popped upwards into a poof behind her head. “For those of you who do not know,” she began, “the advocacy statement is: ‘Rose and I advocate engagement with the queer feminine body.’ It’s a plan text, but there’s no plan. This probably is not what you will see in most of your debates, but it is one style that Rose and I particularly enjoy.”

Pearl nodded, moving to add: “You will find that Amethyst and I are somewhat more… traditional in our approach.”

“At least for this debate…  _because of you_ ,” Amethyst jeered playfully.

“Let’s get started,” interrupted Garnet, shooting the other team a look as she put a slender finger upon the button of her little electronic timer. As the “beep” sound of the timer resonated within the room, it was quickly masked by a powerful voice that Peridot had come to expect from the otherwise-quieter debater.

Lapis, on the other hand, was taken completely off-guard by the volume she had heard. After getting over her initial shock, she immersed herself in the substance of Garnet’s speech:

 

_We are the excess; the uncodified,_

_the unexpected element of resistance._

_To be against this game_

_is ingrained_

_in the core of our existence._

_We stand against a bastion_

_from within its gates._

_We’re subversive,_

_divisive,_

_a spark to start the flames._

_Put away your economic statistics and death-toll predictions, ‘cause debate’s first dereliction is exacerbating our affliction. Rose and I are subversive, feminized elements whose queerness can’t be held in your hand or shown on a graph or calculated as data. We will not debate about the impact because we are the impact. Thus, Rose and I advocate authentic engagement with the queer feminine body._

> Lapis: didn’t you say she would be reading fast?

Peridot did not respond; their eyes were locked in upon Garnet as she spoke with a restrained fury, vehemence filling her voice to the brim. Despite this, she delivered every word as if it were a delicacy. She shattered the boundary between voice and meaning just as the powerful, yet restrained, volume of her voice destroyed the silence of the room.

Garnet paused, glancing at everyone in the room before her legs took on a more active stance. Gripping onto the laptop stand like a lifeline, she took on a completely different air as her voice accelerated to speeds that would blow any non-debater’s ears away. As Garnet’s voice grew faster, taking on a sense of directness as she read evidence about queer feminine oppression and the need for pedagogical restructuring, Peridot finally managed to break away, glancing down at the Skype message between themself and their partner.

> Lapis: oh, she started spreading!
> 
> Peridot: Pay attention. Take as many notes as you can.
> 
> Lapis: this seems really personal, much more than the “resolution” lol

There was a pause before Peridot looked to their partner with subtle hints of heightened conviction. Garnet’s rapid pace ground to a halt as she began to recite another aesthetic piece, returning her pace to that of before:

 

_I speak for myself,_

_I spit for myself,_

_I rage for myself,_

_I debate for myself._

_Engage in me for once!_

_Reach out and touch_

_this gorgeous identity,_

_the essence of me._

_Clutch and grasp it, hear its knowledge._

_Let it go and let it breathe._

_Give it space to grow a flower,_

_and if you rip it out,_

_its seeds will remain._

_I affirm me, nothing else I can do._

_Engage in me, nothing is more true._

 

> Peridot: Is this what you want?
> 
> Lapis: this will be us.


	4. It's Personal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus REALLY begins the Lapidot.
> 
> http://marxistperidot.tumblr.com/post/120354824141/spreading-chapter-3

_Judge, when you sign your ballot, you need to keep this question in mind: Is the status quo working? Are queer feminine folks given a space to speak in debate right now? The negatives have conceded straight out of Garnet’s first speech that we are constantly shunned from this space. If we have even the slightest chance of improving things in our community, then you must vote affirmative because no amount of rules matter when their rules only benefit a privileged minority of cisgender, heterosexual men!_

Frantic beeping noises coming from numerous running timers simultaneously going off interrupted Rose as, with a final breath, she finished the last speech of the debate, her voice echoing in the heads of everybody in the room. Numerous hands moved to silence their timers, their messages having been received clearly, as Rose closed her laptop and took it off of the stand.

Pearl and Amethyst stood, shaking hands with their adversaries. The shorter of the two negatives let out a sigh.

“I knew that you were going to go for that horrible argument.”

“It was our best shot!” Pearl rolled her eyes as she packed up her laptop. “Don’t you know a thing about strategy?”

As Amethyst went on about their partner sucking all the fun out of the debate and Pearl retorted with something about function over form, Garnet made her way to the center of the room, deftly disassembling the laptop stand. “Now is the time to have questions, comments, and concerns.”

This brought silence to the bickering duo. However, it wrought chatter among the spectators in the room.

“Garnet and Rose clearly won that round,” offered Buck to Sour Cream, gesturing to haphazardly-construed notes on his paper. By the odd countenance on his face, Sour Cream seemed to disagree.

“Sure, the final speech was persuasive, but that’s not enough!” Lars argued to Sadie. “Breaking the rules is breaking the rules, and I think that’s important.”

Sapphire nodded along in agreement as Ruby ranted about the meekness of a particular speech given by Pearl.

Peridot let out a sharp sigh, running a hand through their hair and fixing their headband before turning to face Lapis on the couch. “Any thoughts?” they asked, quirking a brow intently but remaining as cold-faced as ever.

“Yes, actually,” the novice said with pride, gesturing to her paper. The notes that she had taken read somewhat like a mind map, connections drawn between arguments and speeches that were never connected at any point in the round itself. Peridot became dazed just looking at the mess, let alone attempting to make sense of it.

“Garnet and Rose won, easily.”

“Why do you think that?” Peridot asked, blinking as if in disagreement.

Lapis looked down at her paper, a finger running across one of the arrows that she had drawn. “They were more persuasive,” she arrived upon after a mental journey that created a long, awkward silence between the two debaters. “Their use of aesthetics worked well with their argument.”

“What about when Pearl said that aesthetics are less important than evidence?”

Lapis shrugged. “I believe that’s wrong. A poem can mean just as much as some rambling ‘expert’ or what have you.”

“That may be true,” Peridot commented, “but Garnet and Rose never really _said_ that. They didn’t make that distinction.”

“So?”

“There’s no truth in debate.”

The novice huffed. “Fine. I still think that they won.” She leaned back into the couch, her ears darting from one corner of the room to another to hear the relatively-split opinions.

“Lapis?”

The room quieted down as Garnet pointed at the novice’s hand, raised with intent in the back of the room. All eyes turned to her, including those of her partner that had previously been intently glued to the marginal notes that they had taken during the course of the debate. Peridot furrowed their eyebrows in question, but Lapis didn’t seem to notice.

“Did you write the poem?” she asked.

“Which one?”

“All of them,” Lapis clarified, “in the first speech.”

Garnet nodded resolutely. “Yes. I believe that writing your own poem or song is the best way to really connect with the message that you want to say.”

“Really?” The blue-streaked woman tapped a few notes down before, with an awkward movement on her mousepad, re-opening the notes that she had taken during Peridot’s lecture. “How does that fit in with the, erm, ‘author qualifications’ that are necessary?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Excuse me?” Lapis asked for clarification out of sincerity.

“It doesn’t. The qualification is that I know the most about my experience out of anybody.”

Blinking her confusion as Garnet’s explanation seemed to contradict Peridot’s assurance that author qualifications can “make or break a round,” in their own words, Lapis shrugged, typing more notes into Peridot’s file as footnotes.

Garnet took immediate notice of this confusion. “Are you interested in this sort of debate?” she asked to the novice. “Poetry? Lived experience? Social location?”

“Yes,” answered Lapis resolutely, but not before glancing off to the side to survey the look on her partner’s face. Peridot’s lips were pursed slightly, and they ran their fingers against each other in what was apparent anxiety. Their eyes were absolutely locked upon Garnet.

The super senior nodded upon receiving Lapis’s answer. “I assume that Peridot has already taught you the basics.”

“Yes,” Lapis answered, eliciting a small beam of pride from her more-experienced partner.

“And you took good notes.”

“Of course.”

As her eyes scanned over to Rose for a glimmer of the other woman’s approval, Garnet wore a big grin, one that only came when she came in contact with potential that truly elicited excitement in the woman. Some of the more experienced debaters in the room, including Pearl and Amethyst, seemed to recognize this facial expression, muttering among themselves in curiosity. To the newer members of the squad, Peridot and Lapis included, it rose numerous brows.

“Delete them all.”

This suggestion, one straight from the mouth of one of the United States’s most successful debate captains, made the experienced and novice debaters alike join in a congruous bout of bewilderment. Whispered questions that once flew about the room came to a screeching halt as silence clashed throughout everyone’s ears. Peridot drew up an exasperated look on their face; they knew of Garnet’s skill as much as anybody else, but they could not stop themselves from fanning their flames of resent within their pit.

Lapis Lazuli took Garnet’s suggestion as an escape from memorizing the copious amount of jargonish buzzwords that Peridot had introduced to her. With more awkward maneuvers upon her mousepad that summoned a grimace from the more experienced first year, Lapis happily dragged the file of notes to her recycle bin. “Done,” she declared with cheerful finality, a tone that went contradicted by that of Peridot.

“Are you serious?” Peridot inquired indignantly, gesturing wildly with their left hand to Lapis’s monitor as their eyes fixated upon a still-beaming Garnet. “How is she possibly able to learn an advanced style of debate without a strong foundation of the basics?”

“The same way I did,” came the answer with a small loft of her shoulders upwards.

Huffing out of habitual response towards what they took as a sardonic response, Peridot closed their laptop, moving to stand up. “How am I supposed to teach like that? I didn’t teach novices in high school, full stop, let alone in unconventional ways.”

“Make these ways conventional for yourself.”

With that, the first year’s movements came to a sudden halt, and they stood in their position, bewilderment clashing with anger in a battle that somehow bred the same spark that they saw when they glanced downwards. Lapis Lazuli had already packed away her things, and the captivation of her blue eyes pulled Peridot in, pleaded with them for a commitment that would bring Garnet’s advice into fruition. The closing of dull green orbs signaled the concession that brought Lapis to her feet and both of them moving out of the squad room.

They had work to do.

* * *

 

The fierce air conditioning of the Schmitt Hall washed over Peridot suddenly, causing small goosebumps to form all over their skin as it tried to adjust to the difference between the scalding, mid-day heat of Georgia and the few ticks beneath room temperature that was customary of the dormitories. This only added to their irritation; while they were something of a workaholic, they were only so for its promise of a temporary segregation from cumbersome interactions. This was a different kind of work, one that not only mandated interaction but thrived on it at its essence. They were to talk about identity, about relations, about their world.

With a flick of their card on the lock, their door swung open to reveal an occupation, one that made Peridot shudder at the profundity of their bad luck.

“Peridot! You’re back so soon,” greeted a sweaty Jasper lying face-up on her bed, feet dangling off the side of the too-short frame.

Peridot let out a sigh, stepping in to allow Lapis entry. “We’ve got our assignment,” they answered plainly, moving to plug in their laptop.

“What’s mine?”

“I don’t know. Do you even have a new partner yet?” asked Peridot, removing their headband.

“I talked to Jenny on Skype. I think that I’m going to partner up with her.” Jasper rolled over on her side, facing outwards; her back conceals a long stripe of sweat that had once been covered. She gestures a lazy arm to Lapis. “Is this the one that Garnet set you up with?”

Lapis narrowed her eyes dangerously towards Jasper. “You can talk to me directly, you know.”

Jasper lofted her shoulders. “Fine. What’s your name?”

“Lapis Lazuli.”

“Jasper. My pleasure.” She turned her attention back to Peridot, leaving the novice in the proverbial dust of the conversation. “What’s my assignment?”

“I told you that I don’t know!” Peridot rolled their eyes. “Why don’t you ask Jenny about strategy?”

Jasper glanced at the other side of the room where her phone was dutifully charging. She let out a groan. “Later. What’s your assignment?”

“Teaching her without teaching the basics,” Peridot replied with a clear hint of spite.

Lapis furrowed her eyebrows, pulling up a chair next to Peridot’s by their desk. “We ought to get started then, right?”

As Jasper rolled back down and stared up at the ceiling, Peridot turned to face Lapis with thoughts running through their head at wild speeds. “Where to start?” they mused, primarily to themself but also in recognition that Lapis could fully hear their self-questioning. After a brief pause, they had their answer. “Tell me what about that round you liked.”

The novice didn't need nearly as much time to mull over her answer as Peridot expected her to need; to Lapis, the charms of the practice debate were self-evident, glaring, illuminating the round in a way that only they uniquely could, even to someone with such little knowledge as herself.

“Garnet and Rose were expressive,” she began, having a bit of trouble codifying the answer that she comprehended so well. “They understood everything - those connections that they made were ingenious. In general, they seemed to care. They made their arguments their own.”

Peridot nodded to themself as if analyzing the novice’s answer. “Go on.”

Lapis did just that. “It was personal. After Garnet’s first speech, I felt like I knew her on a level that I don’t know many people. It wasn’t a lie, none of it.”

“Any comments on Amethyst’s and Pearl’s performance?”

Lapis shrugged. “They were smart and quick, but they were just telling Rose and Garnet that they were breaking the rules. It seemed... cheap. Pure tactics, no heart.”

With a final nod, Peridot leaned closer in their chair. “Then I suppose it is time for us to make it personal.”

As if on cue, the reclined Jasper pulled herself up to sit on her bed, swiveling around so that her back leaned straight up against the wall in order to face the two others. Her face relayed volumes of condescension.

“You’re getting into identity politics?” she sneered. “Peridot, that’s not like you at all.”

“No, it’s not,” they conceded, “but it will be now.”

Jasper scoffed, eyes rolling back in her head in a display of grandiose disapproval. “You were infamous for your tactics just a year prior, and you’re going to throw that away to Kumbaya about your feelings for 9 minutes?”

“Garnet seems to think that this will be worth it, and I would argue that she is a renowned debater,” retorted Peridot.

“Garnet gets ballots on her side because she cheats! Her poetry, her music, her pathos isn’t real debating. If you deconstruct her speeches, the arguments are just not there, not in the text.”

Lapis furrowed her eyebrows. “She’s persuasive. Isn’t that the point of debate?”

Jasper huffed. “What does a novice know about this activity that I don’t?”

“Jasper, I am following orders,” Peridot snapped, looking towards her with narrowed eyes. “There’s not much I can do about my situation.”

“So, you got fucked over,” inferred Jasper, standing by the side of her bed and shuffling to affix her flip flops onto her feet. She offers Peridot a crooked grin, eyes locked upon the smaller first year with an obvious air of intimidation as her eyelids drew narrower and narrower.

Peridot glanced to Lapis, buckling only slightly under the pressure. “It doesn’t matter what I _got_ , but I am here. Why don’t you go back to orientation?”

“Heh,” breathed Jasper as she slung her bag over her shoulder, reaching deftly for the card in her pocket and heading towards the door. “I was just leaving.”

And so she did. Her presence was still marked by the faint odor of sweat and the much more marked pressure resting now upon the combined shoulders of Peridot and Lapis Lazuli.

“Look,” uttered Lapis between grit teeth, the one word trying to find a space in the crevices that Jasper’s massive presence allowed, “if taking me on as a novice is going to fuck up your dreams of making it big, then I’ll just go do Model UN or something.”

It was tempting, that was certain, but, in Peridot’s conscience, the temptation weighted by Jasper’s authoritarian aura was completely crushed by that of Garnet. If Lapis quit indirectly because of them, then what would happen? What would Garnet say? They calculated the risk, and, to them, the proper path for self-preservation was clear:

“No, no, no,” they assured, waving a hand of dismissal. “Now that Jasper’s out of the room, we can really focus on this analysis. We need to get personal, as I was saying.”

Lapis nodded once. “Alright.”

“You seem to be the most vehement on this choice of style. What do you want to talk about in relation to the topic?”

The novice shrugged slightly. “You mean... economic engagement?”

“No. Tell me about yourself _in relation to_ economic engagement. Why do you hate it?”

Peridot corrected her with a vehemence that Lapis had not seen before, one that rose from their core and found itself expressed in their voice, their slightly-clenched hands by their sides, the sparkle lighting up the green in their eyes as if they were a curious scientist on the brink of an epiphany in their observations.  Finding herself naturally capable of latching on to this newfound passion of her partner, Lapis offered a smile.

“I am a Filipina woman,” she proclaimed, the answer seemingly-obvious but profound in its declarative surety. “My heritage has never been particularly important to me because my family… they’ve never enforced it or really even taught it. I don’t speak Tagalog, I don’t go to a cultural center. I’m not even Catholic anymore.” She let out a soft sigh before continuing on. “Despite that, I know when something is a threat to my people, and if I were to hear ‘economic engagement’ with the Philippines, I would shudder. Why should I be complacent when the same woes are to attack a different people?”

Peridot shrugged. “You’re not, I guess.”

Lapis blinked as if removed from a trance. “That’s correct,” she replied in the same blunt manner as her companion. “Do you have any reason to go against the grain? You seemed fairly complacent with economic engagement.”

“No! No, I mean, yes.” Peridot hastily corrected themself, waving defensive hands in front of their chest. “I am anti-imperialism all the way, certainly. It’s just that I never thought of economic engagement as imperialism until you mentioned it.”

“That’s because you don’t have to think of it like that. It has never harmed your people, but it has killed mine.”

They shrugged. “That is correct.”

“You know just as well as I do that this can’t be personal for just me. You have to get into it as well, Peridot,” prodded Lapis, accurately assuming that the other’s curiosity and vehemence was solely similar to that of an observer.

Peridot huffed. “I just said that I am opposed to imperialism.”

Letting out a long, drawn-out sigh, Lapis Lazuli shook her head. “You can’t just be a depersonalized ally. Garnet isn’t and Rose isn’t. Isn’t there something that infuriates you?”

As if the lights of the room dimmed and Lapis Lazuli’s accusatory glare morphed into twin spotlights casting upon them, Peridot glanced to their side at nothing in particular. The barricade that they had so meticulously constructed could hardly stand against the heat of the podium, the pressure exerted by Lapis and even the absent Garnet. They marked their concession with a brief fluttering of their eyes before opening them once more, slumping slightly in their seat. “Fine,” they breathed, a break in the wall that allowed just a bit of their own light to shine through the crack. Lapis eagerly obliged.

Peridot moved to her bed, hopping up and turning around to face the eager Lapis.

“Let me tell you about my identity.”


End file.
